From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishshantyshan‧ty /ˈʃænti/ noun (plural shanties) [countable] 1 TBBa small, roughly built hut made from thin sheets of wood, tin, plastic etc that very poor people live in Workers were living in tents and shanties.2 (also sea shanty)APM a song sung by sailors in the past, as they did their work
Examples from the Corpus
shanty• Adelaida Parra coordinates seven literacy groups each week spending long hours travelling by bus between the distant shanty towns.• This was answered inpart by a number of small-scale entrepreneurs operating in the shanty towns.• The inhabitants of the shanty towns have frequently achieved stability and social organisation through the establishment of personal networks and voluntary associations.• On the far side of the pond the shanties started, the lowest-lying cluster surrounded by water, flooded.• The gang warfare ripping through the shanties is fuelled by what has replaced politics after Aristide: prostitution, drugs and ritual.• Migrant families have brought the tradition with them to the urban shanty towns.• He had visited shanty settlements known as fa las owing to their resemblance, at a distance, to honeycombs.Origin shanty 1. (1800-1900) Canadian French chantier, from French, “wooden support”, from Latin cantherius “trellis”2. (1800-1900) chantey 